


Nine Edition

by The_Raconteur_24601



Series: Zepheera-Vision [5]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), The Borrowers - All Media Types
Genre: Doctor Who Crossover, G/T, GT, TINY - Freeform, borrower companion, giant, giant tiny - Freeform, the borrowers crossover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 10:47:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16852609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Raconteur_24601/pseuds/The_Raconteur_24601
Summary: AU in which Zepheera encounters the Doctor in an earlier incarnation.*GIFs used are NOT mine! They are used for illustrative and inspirational purposes, and I claim no ownership over them*





	1. The Vanishing Box

_London, 2005_

 

For the most part, Zepheera loved living in the Tyler household. Only two humans, aside from the mother Jackie’s occasional gentleman caller. She was much more energetic than her daughter, Rose, who spent most of the day at her job in a shop in town. It was relatively quiet, the humans were predictable and often distracted. No better place for a borrower.

Yet, deep down, Zepheera longed for the days of her youth. Not being able to physically age certainly did not mean she didn’t  _feel_  old every now and then, though nowadays it was quite a common feeling for her. She missed being nineteen with a boyfriend, not knowing what the future would hold and frankly not caring. It seemed to her that Rose Tyler had settled on the life that Zepheera would give anything to have back. And here they were: both stuck in the Powell Estate with no prospects whatsoever.

Zepheera supposed, if she were human-sized rather than four and a half inches tall (or vice versa), she and Rose Tyler might be kindred spirits. But for now, neither Tyler knew of Zepheera’s existence and it was going to stay that way.

Then one night, her sleep was disturbed by an unusual commotion out in the humans’ part if the house. Lots of loud talking, telly blaring something awful, and constant vibrations betraying the giant being’s every movement. As her head cleared, Zepheera decided that something important and worth checking out was going on. So she trudged through her many passages and lifts through the walls until she could enter a small vent high up the wall in the main area of the house. She could see everything and nobody could see her.

Rose was sitting numbly on the couch while her mother paced the room with the telephone, calling each and every one of her friends about what had happened to her daughter. According to her and the television, Rose’s shop had exploded. Police were investigating and Jackie was raving about demands for compensation.

When Rose’s boyfriend Mickey showed up, Zepheera gathered that the worst was over. She’d heard enough to know what to expect in the morning. Rose wouldn’t be going out tomorrow, but she might mope around enough for Zepheera to make a short supply run. She had enough food to last her a while if worst came to worst.

The last thing she saw or heard as she turned to go back to bed was Rose sending Mickey off with a plastic arm.

She spent the next morning determining which foods in her meager pantry would go bad sooner if she didn’t eat them right away when a new male voice rang through the house. She couldn’t hear what he was saying from inside the walls, but she immediately abandoned her chore to investigate this newcomer,  grabbing her borrowing equipment on the way out. She’d need to know if this man was going to be around often or not.

He was very odd to watch, she found as she peered down from her usual vent. While Rose made him coffee, he wandered the entire room touching everything: he commented on a tabloid, flipped through a book and declared it had a sad ending, and made a mess of a deck of playing cards. Zepheera pitied Rose, who was trying to make conversation with this man who was clearly not paying much attention to her.

Then talk of the police arose, at least from Rose’s end, and Zepheera honed in on her speech. It was hard to tell, but it seemed like Rose knew that the man was somehow  _involved_ with the destruction of her job.

Everything happened so fast after that. The mystery man was attacked by the plastic arm from then night before, and then it turned on Rose. The man disabled it with some kind of device, a tube-like thing with a glowing blue light on the end, and before anyone knew it, he was off.

Zepheera raced down the wall to her entrance to the room as fast as she could. Jackie was busy blowing her hair and getting ready for the day, so the borrower had an ever-shortening window of time to make it to the window. By the time she’d climbed up, Rose and the man were walking swiftly away. She lost them behind the garages for a few minutes, but she watched the man stride away from Rose toward a blue box. Zepheera recognized it as a police public call box, but she hadn’t seen one since the sixties.

Before she could even wonder about it, the man shut the door and the box disappeared. Vanished into thin air. Zepheera stood gaping open-mouthed at the empty spot where it used to be until she saw Rose returning to the Powell Estate and she knew her time was up.

Zepheera high-tailed it back to her humble home in the walls and immediately began packing. For years she’d dreamed of something different, something to take her away from everything that reminded her of her mistakes and regrets. She never belonged, she only stayed. Maybe the mysterious man could be the answer to the prayers she never dared to say.

Things didn’t just vanish into thin air, so that man and his vanishing box had to be somewhere. And if it was the last thing she ever did, if it took a hundred years, Zepheera was going to find it.

* * *

Wandering London for hours had been nerve-wracking enough. Then the shop-window dummies came to life and wreaked havoc upon the pedestrians of London and began destroying everything. It was all a blur to Zepheera, who managed to find safety in an alley. She huddled against a brick wall, waiting for the minor burns on her arms to heal. By that time, much of the noise in the distance had died down, replaced by ambulance and police sirens. Was it over?

Then another noise filled the air, a wheezing groan that inexplicably lifted Zepheera’s heart with hope. A breeze that hadn’t been there before billowed the borrower’s short, dark hair as she watched the same blue box from before appear. Her eyes were wide as the doors creaked open and Mickey stumbled out, followed by Rose Tyler herself calmly exiting and phoning someone.

The opportunity was there, and Zepheera took it. Clutching her messenger bag, she ran full tilt for the open door and slipped past the approaching feet with ease.

Her heart nearly stopped at the sight of the inside of the box. It was much too large for an ordinary police box, and much too…amazing. Zepheera had never seen anything like it in her 78 years.

She hardly acknowledged the mystery man standing in the doorway as she ascended the slight ramp up to the center structure of the room. It glowed with a warm blue-green light that made Zepheera forget about her troubles. She couldn’t explain it, but something about this place felt  _right_. Like home.

The slam of the shut door broke her out of her thoughts, and she turned to find herself face-to-face with the man’s approaching foot. Quickly dodging out of the way, Zepheera took shelter against the nearest coral-like support and pressed her back to it, staring up at the man’s towering form.

Her heart raced as she contemplated her next move. The man frightened her at the deepest of levels based on his size alone. This place was certainly large enough for her to find a place to make a home for herself without his knowledge, but was she prepared for the consequences if he found her out? And what if she just introduced herself right how? Would he be angry with her for stowing away?

Her questions were answered soon enough. The man fiddled with a few controls and the room felt like someone picked it up and shook it like a snow globe. Zepheera cried out on surprise as her feet slipped through the grating of the floor, but she managed to catch herself before she fell through. The movement stopped and she was able to pull herself up to hang from her underarms.

Her panic rose when the floor vibrated around her. She scrambled to get up and away, but something snagged her by the waist. A scream caught in her throat as she was lifted swiftly into the air, dangling in front of a striking blue frown.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded, dropping Zepheera into his other palm. “How long have you been on my ship? This is not an intergalactic taxi service, you know!”

Zepheera scrambled to her feet, clutching her bag tightly against her stomach. Despite the scare and his indignant tone, he wasn’t angry enough to do away with her and be done with it. He was listening, perhaps on some level curious. Taking a deep breath between short, panicked ones, she hoped he would hear her out.

“I h-haven’t been here long, I just s-saw your box disappear and–”

“You’ve packed,” he observed, his frown deepening as his eyes softened the tiniest fraction.

Zepheera looked down at her overflowing messenger bag, feeling her neck heating up in embarrassment. She’d filled with everything that mattered to her in the world, all on a stupid whim. But a glance up at the man told her he expected an answer. “I thought…maybe I could disappear, too.”

“…Do you not know who I am? Or where you are?”

She studied her shoes and shook her head no.

He was quiet for a moment. Once Zepheera broke eye contact, she was hesitant to make it again. Then the man was on the move, the sudden motion knocking her to her knees. When everything settled down again, his hand was hovering above the strange-looking surface of the center structure. Taking this as a good sign, she hopped right off, glad to be on solid ground again.

“Let’s talk,” said the man as he took an old seat across from Zepheera. “I reckon we got off on the wrong foot. I’m the Doctor. And you are?”

His more casual position helped Zepheera relax a tad, and she released her iron grip on her bag. “Zepheera,” she replied 

The borrower and the Time Lord had a good long talk. The Doctor explained that he was an alien and this place was a ship that could travel through time and space. Zepheera told him about her father, her brother, her husband; as much as she felt comfortable revealing to a total stranger, which wasn’t much. The unspoken conclusion they both drew at the end was the undoubted loneliness of the other.

“Do you want to come with me?”  The Doctor blurted when Zepheera had finished.

She stared at him in shock for a moment. She hadn’t expected to be  _invited_  along, but if he was seriously offering…

“What, run around the universe throughout time and space with a strange alien in leather?” She smirked. “Why the hell not.”


	2. What of Rose?

Weeks passed, and Zepheera settled down in her own little corner of the TARDIS. Months passed, and the Doctor showed Zepheera wonders in the universe that she could never have imagined.

Years flew by, and the borrower and the Time Lord traveled through time and space rescuing civilizations both alien and ancient, saving planets from utter destruction, and running an awful lot.

On Zepheera’s 90th birthday, the Doctor whisked her away for a well-deserved day out. He took her to a planet where a six-foot-tall man could walk around with his four and a half inch tall companion without fuss, and together they attended a play. A stirring dramedy, the context for which was a little lost on Zepheera, but the Doctor quietly explained any references she was bound to miss. Afterwards, he treated her to a hearty meal out in a fancy restaurant. Zepheera felt a little odd eating in full view of dozens of people who were so much larger than her, but it got easier as the Doctor advised her to ignore them and the night went on.

Just before the dessert course, Zepheera cleared her throat. Something had been on her mind lately, something that she doubted was far from the Doctor’s thoughts.

“Doctor?”

“Yeah?” The Doctor looked up from the pheasant bones he was pushing around his plate.

Zepheera took a steadying breath and folded her hands in her lap. “I… Today was fantastic, and I can’t thank you enough.”

The Doctor’s head tilted a little and his brow pinched. “But?”

Feeling her neck heat up, Zepheera stared at her twisting fingers. “It’s not a  _but_ , it’s just…I think we should talk about Rose.”

There was an immediate shift in the air, but Zepheera was nervous to look. Neither of them had even spoken Rose Tyler’s name in ages. Zepheera brought up the fact that she’d lived in her flat since the human girl was a child, but when ever she mentioned it the Doctor’s eyes would grow distant. Then she would remember how he had offered Rose the same opportunity he’d given Zepheera, and Rose turned it down. He wouldn’t say so, but Zepheera could tell that after all this time, that moment still affected him.

“What of Rose?”

Zepheera looked up. The Doctor’s lips were tightly pursed, and his bright blue eyes refused to meet the borrower’s gaze. But he was listening.

“I know you miss her. You close off when you hear her name, and you certainly discuss her at length with yourself when you think I can’t hear.”

The Doctor gave a dry chuckle. “Right little eavesdropper, aren’t ya.”

“It’s hard to ignore when you’re my size,” Zepheera smirked. “But… Y'know, people change their minds all the time. I dunno why she said no, but take it from me, Rose would want to be here, traveling with you. She  _needs_  it.”

The Time Lord regarded his tiny companion carefully, glancing away as he considered her words. “How can you be sure?”

Zepheera smiled at the mite of hope leaking through her friend’s voice. “I watched her grow up, remember?”

Dessert finally arrived, and the subject was dropped. By the time they got back to the TARDIS, Zepheera was sure her suggestion would go unremarked upon. That was, until the Doctor piloted the blue box faster than he’d ever dared with Zepheera, and quickly rushed to the door.

Zepheera’s heart warmed when she saw a flash of blonde outside the door and heard the Doctor say, “By the way, did I mention it also travels in time?”


End file.
